4. In the United States, on the other hand, the gas chamber has been considered a more humane alternative to its predecessors, hanging or the electric chair. My thanks to Chuck Kleinhans for pointing out this distinction.

10. The whole sermon has since been removed from YouTube, but audio versions still circulate freely. See note above. This essay makes no judgment about the totality of Reverend Wright’s thought. It is concerned solely with his sermons of 2001 and 2003, and with Barack Obama’s response to him.

11. For a more detailed discussion of the use of race and of language in relation to Reverend Wright in the 2008 campaign, see Herman, Edward S. and David Peterson, “Jeremiah Wright in the Propaganda System.” Monthly Review (September 2008).

13. This essay was prepared with support from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto. Thanks to Chuck Kleinhans for his detailed and very constructive criticism, to Anna McCarthy for her supportive and constructive feedback on early versions of this piece, and to Aubrey Anable for close reading and very valuable comments on later drafts. Thanks also to Christopher Heron for his keen eye and invaluable assistance in obtaining and organizing the images for this essay.